Sad but true. Cooper was as good as Hemingway or Mailer (or any of those white cats--and this is coming from a white cat), but due to his skin color and the times and what he wrote about the recognition wasn't forthcoming. It's sad. It tears you up inside. He shouldn't have died broke and a failure--because he was not a failure. The man had talent to spare. The writing is not only raw, but it is literature as art. Another overlooked African-American genius. I just don't get it, don't understand it. But why should that surprise me about people? Read Chester Himes' IF HE HOLLERS LET HIM GO if you want to understand what life was like for certain folks during that time.
Read Clarence Cooper, Jr., savor the sentences. He lives for those who appreciate excellent writing.

In Clarence Coopers The Scene cronicles the lives of several junkies, pushers, cops, thieves that live and die in an unnamed city over the course of several months. The story is told in a pulp fictionesce type of manner where all of these characters interconnect with one another There is even a character who dies in the begining that we later find out why. But more than just being a gimmicky story about crimminals and cops it's more than that it's about hope and hopelessness, greed, corruption, ruthlessness, racism, classism and sexism redemtion and revenge. And it's a murder mystery of sorts. It sounds like a lot but Cooper keeps all of this afloat with his stark realistic depiction of street life. His description of a heroin addicts withdrawl is unflinching, almost too real. I recomend this book highly to those who like black pulpwriters such as Donald Goines, chester himes but those who like a good hard boiled tale about a world most us rarely see and most ofetn times want to believe doesn't exist.

Cooper does an excellent job with the story, using the characters to tell the story instead of narrating it. He does a good job with the relationships between each character and each are developed. You feel for them when they are in pain and felt their excitement when they find a score.